1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image capturing apparatus, a control method, and a recording medium, and particularly relates to techniques for generating images that are focused at a desired depth based on output data obtained through shooting.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, image capturing apparatuses such as digital cameras that, when capturing an image, record information indicating a two-dimensional intensity distribution of light and an angle of incidence of light rays in a subject space (that is, light field information) as data (light field data, or “LF data”) have appeared. By performing predetermined processing on the LF data obtained in this manner, an image that is focused at a desired depth (a “reconstructed image”) can be generated (Ren. Ng et al., “Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera”, Stanford University Computer Science Tech Report CTSR, 2005-02; Todor Georgiev and Andrew Lumsdaine, “Superresolution with Plenoptic 2.0 Camera”, Signal Recovery and Synthesis, Optical Society of America, 2009).
Meanwhile, there are techniques that apply different types of image processing to image signals output when shooting using an image capturing apparatus, depending on the scene that was shot, the purpose of the shooting, and so on. For example, one technique employed when using a charge-accumulation type photoelectric conversion element as the image sensor involves reading out a charge accumulated during exposure when the charge has saturated and executing the exposure again in order to obtain image signals corresponding to multiple charge readouts, and the image signals are then combined to enhance the dynamic range (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-34772).
However, a method for usefully processing multiple pieces of LF data obtained through multiple exposures based on the scene that was shot, the purpose of the shooting, or the like when generating a reconstructed image using LF data as described in the aforementioned Non-patent Documents 1 and 2 has not yet been proposed.